Aces High
by Thanatos Disraeli
Summary: This is based off a dream I had. More chapters to come! Data for the win 3


_**1**_

_**Compound A**_

The test bell sounded. End of this shift's time with their subject group. They were all gagged, blindfolded, and ushered into neat lines of eight, stacked two-by-two, like horses to a royal carriage from the early eighteenth century. The lead armed guard took the front lead chain and tugged, to which the bound and gagged lines of subjects followed. They were led down different corridors, all simmilar and uniform, the sides lined with metal doors with a small observation window, each one a 'holding cell' for the subjects. They were known as 'death traps' to the subjects, in the secret gesture language they used to communicate.

The guards followed the exact same procedure each time they deposited a subject into their respective holding cell; a pole with a metal loop around their neck, drag them into the cell, unhook the chain, untie the gag, remove the blindfold, lock the cell before the subject knows what's going on. If the subject had been anesthisized, they are carried in on secure stretchers, deposited in their cell, the binding unlatched, then they are left to wake up on their own in the secure cell.

Number 24677815 watched as her cell neared, third from the last. She hates it here. Been in the compound longer than most of the other subjects here, but also an equal failure of Aces High. As one of the flanking Romulan guards passed her, he ran his tattoed hand over the back of her thigh, trailed it up over her toned rear, then kept walking. Number 24677815 growled at him, barring her catlike teeth at him under her depleted gums, and didn't turn away until the other flank guard noticed and clubbed the back of her neck with a silencer. Just because she was blindfolded doesn't mean she didn't smell the awful stench of unbathed Romulan.

"There will be none of that, animal."

When he was satisfied that she had been sucessfully punished, he moved on, making sure the others didn't break rank.

The subject chained next to Number 24677851 stroked the outside of her left hand from pinky finger tip to wrist, then tapped her wrist twice. She in turn traced a cross with her thumb in the subject's webbing between it's index finger and own thumb. Message recieved. _Don't worry about it,_ the touch had said. Her reply, _thank you._ Many races were kept here, but the touch-gesture language was understood universally. It was the only way they could survive, could keep going in this hell hole.

It was her turn to be deposited. The subject next to her tapped the underside of her wrist three times with his index and middle finger together, _stay strong,_ it said, to which she returned with the same. The parting that every subject gave the one chained next to them, a final parting of sorts, for they never really know if that day will be their last. The metal loop was placed around her neck, and she was yanked in to her cell, unchained, ungagged, and her sight was returned. She barely had time to turn around before her cell door was locked.

Number 24677851 sat down with a plop and examined her latest endowment of Aces High. She lifted her right arm into the small patch of dim light. Plastic tubes filled with tiny hairline fillament wires stuck painfully out of it from wrist to elbow. They were trying to force an adaptive response from her modified genetic code. Jsut as the wired tubes reflected the dim light on the filthy wall of her empty stone and steel cell, so did she reflect on her life thus far as she did after every session with the Scalpers, the subject name for the scientists they were forced to endure.

At the ripe young age of 23, Number 24677851 should be well in to her chosen career, maybe even dreaming of space travel in Starfleet Academy one day, but no, she was a part of Aces High, a top-secret genetic project designed and conducted illegally on planet Romulous. The goal of Aces High is to sucessfully merge cybernetic technology with living tissue, creating a super-species race that has the speed, strength, and intelligence of an Android life form, and the reasoning and emotional synthesis of an organic life form. Of course, the ultimate objective for keeping the organic part of the subjects on the playfield was reproduction, however the project as a whole was a failure across the board. The subjects either died, which happened most of the time, or turned in to mutilated embarassments, doomed to live life in the Compound where synthesis was a constant attempt on them. The stress, pain, and other tortures the subjects were constantly put through taxed them greatly, and was simply a crime against life.

Number 24677851 felt robbed of her life, of her basic right to live as she chose.

She guessed being raised in the Compound didn't really give her much to rember of the outside world. The same cannot be said about the others, though. She was one of fifteen that were created artificially right here in the Compound. Oh they were real viable eggs and sperm from natural doners, but everything else, from insemination to adulthood was done completley in the lab. Number 24677851 has never even seen the sky or touched real grass before. She, and the other fourteen like her, were raised within the grey, dimly lit walls of the Compound, and only educated sparesly. Just enough to read proficeintly and speak english properly, not that they ever used those skills, but at least it's something. The others in the Compound come from Outside, beyond the gates of Hell. They have had a chance to live, then were captured and forced to submit to the Romulan experimentation through a vigorous and hellish re-education program. Very brutal, she's heard, and they never come back quite the same.

As Number 24677851 counts the number of housing tubes in her arm, she goes through her mental checklist of how many of the set she came from are still alive. There's herself, and she believes three others still exsist. The rest were all either killed during synthesis trials, or brutally beaten to death for trying to escape or losing their minds and attacking the Scalper that was working on them. Number 24677851 has learned to be patient. She has learned to resist silently. Yes, she carries her fair share of battle scars, mostly on her back from intense whippings, but then again, every subject in the Compound does. Some worse than others.

Her arm throbs and the pale flesh around the tubes is hot and raised. She senses a potential infection. Probably staph. Not uncommon for invasive synthesis trials like this one. She sighs and thinks about her parents, wonders who and what they might be. She suspects she is some sort of hybrid, onen side definitly human, the other she's not sure about. She doesn't know a lot about other races, being so secluded from normal society. There are times, however, where she feels that she is not some kind of hybrid at all, but really full human. She got a glance of her file once and couldn't make out all of the wording-she doesn't speak Romulan-but understood the chart with the genetic coding on it. She recognized the human helix components. The other one she did not, but then again, that could have also been human with nanocyte coding modifying it, like what all new arrivals are injected with.

Number 24677851 sighs deeply. She hears the food cart in the hall, but knows that there will be no meager meal served to her tonight. She was bad. Her Scalper tried to take her while she was strapped down on the operating table before her procedure. She resisted with all her might. Told him no in her soft, rarely used voice. Bit him and drew his green blood. When he saw that he was not going to get anywhere, that she was far too smart to let him get over on her, he gave up, but instead made her synthesis treatment as painful as possible. She refused to scream, as much as it hurt. No he tried very hard to make her utter a noise, but she never gave him the satisfaction.

Silent resistance.

She was smarter than what they percieved her to be. They all were. She understood the principles of science very well. Could discuss it at length with anyone. She was very literate, and could read and write very well. In fact, she enjoyed writing poems and haiku very much. It was a small pleasure that the Scalpers couldn't take away from her, and for that very reason alone they hated her. She just chose not to exercize these talents in front of the Scalpers.

A small smile cracked her dry, dirty face.

Their rein of terror is going to come to an end soon. Number 24677851 can put things together. She can see the facts line up. No planet in the Federation will stand by and continue letting the Romulans invade their space and take from their races. No, sir. If they don't stop this experimentation on life forms that don't belong to them and have not submitted willingly, fire is going to rain down from the sky on to this place. It could very well kill her, but at least no other life will have to endure the torture that goes on here.

Number 24677851 lays down on the filthy cold stone floor, her throbbing arm cradled on top of her chest, and dreamt of looking up at the stars...

_**2**_

**Salvation Comes**


End file.
